The serene beauty of a sustainable houseboat on Hungary’s Lake Tisza

Hungarian architect and artist Tamás Bene has designed an eco-houseboat on Lake Tisza that offers a vision of how to live in harmony with nature.

Inspired by the natural ecosystem of the vast, man-made body of water, and the restrictions of small-apartment city life, Bene says he wanted to conceptualise a living space embedded in its surroundings. The result is a small, solar-powered moveable water home that offers the basics for a minimalist lifestyle.

The designer, who says he hoped to capture how humans actively interact with nature, suggests that such interventions could happen in a sustainable, respectful way. “This region has a special character: not only in terms of its wildlife, but also because of the human-built environment connected to the river,” says Bene. “This character, it seems, stems from the activities that organically shape waterside huts, dinghies and boats.”